The present invention relates generally to heat exchangers, and more particularly, but not by way of limitation, to rod baffle heat exchangers.
Various rod baffle heat exchangers have been disclosed in the art. Several of these heat exchangers have been put into successful, practical application. One of the continuing problems in these heat exchangers is to establish a firm contact between the rods and the heat exchanger tubes while avoiding rod-to-tube tolerance buildup problems. With rod baffle heat exchangers ever increasing in size, inserting tubes in baffle cage assemblies having a large rod-to-tube tolerance buildup becomes increasingly difficult. One proposal to solve this problem was to provide rods with areas of varying cross section and slide the rods so that an area of the rod having a small cross section is replaced by an area of a rod having a larger cross section between the tubes, whereby the area of the rod with larger cross section is urged into firm contact with the tubes. Another proposal to solve this problem was to use rods having elliptical cross sections therefore allowing easy assembly and firm engagement of the rods and the tubes by simple rotation of the rods about their longitudinal axes.